Better Late?

I have been a slacker for the past couple of weeks. I got uber-organized and set up a posting schedule, then all of a sudden, NaNoWriMo was upon me. And my posts went out the window. I will proceed to catch up…

For those of you who enjoy historical diversions, you may want to give Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly. However, this is not a book for the casual reader of historical fiction. This is the real deal. This is an incredibly detailed account of the French Revolution and a real historical character that definitely caught my attention. (There’s also a fictional character that I wanted to be real. He reminded me a lot of the Vampire Lestat in a sexy, 8^th century rockstar kind of way.)

Donnelly’s attention to detail is quite astounding, and I loved the descriptions of various settings I have visited in and around Paris. What I didn’t care for was the protagonist. How dumb is that? I found her musings to be drawn out and unnecessary. I wanted to get into the historical narrative and stay there without the interruptions of the present-day Andi. I got tired of her moping and self-loathing. Granted, the character was depressed, but that was evident early on. But the pages of angst became a turn-off early on. I’m afraid that only a teen slightly obsessed with history would wade through the murk to reach the end of the book. I did really enjoy Andi’s love interest, though.

If you like historical fiction with a touch of romance, give this one a chance. Stick with it. I think you might like it.

On a completely different note, Borderline by Alan Stratton is a contemporary fiction novel dealing with terrorists cells within the United States. The protagonist is a sixteen-year-old boy named Sami whose father is arrested in the middle of the night under suspicions of terrorist involvement. I loved the premise of this book, and I would really like to read a suspenseful, tight novel on the subject. Unfortunately, Borderline is not that book.

I like that the book has a Muslim protagonist, and I appreciate the discussion of bullying in a universal sense but also in the wake of 9-11. The book is worth reading in terms of adolescent exposure to these issues.

However, I did not find the conclusion to the story remotely believable. I wanted the ending to be edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting goodness. It ended up being very anticlimactic. The book is a quick read with a reasonable pace, so there’s not much of a time-investment. I imagine some of my middle school boys would enjoy the ride. But for me, the resolution matters, and I wasn’t feeling it with this book.